Freiburg (AP) – After years of abuse of a boy from Staufen near Freiburg, a convict has been on trial again since Monday. In this second proceeding, the judges at the Freiburg Regional Court must clarify whether the man must be placed in preventive detention following his ten-year prison sentence for serious rape, child abuse and forced prostitution.
The public prosecutor’s office and accessory prosecution – in addition to a higher sentence of twelve years – demanded before the verdict in August 2018. The presiding judge Stefan Bürgelin said at the time that there was no necessary legal basis for this. The then 33-year-old Spaniard had no criminal record.
The public prosecutor’s office successfully lodged a complaint with the Federal Court of Justice, so that a new chamber of the Regional Court is now negotiating this aspect. The penalty of ten years remains unaffected by the result of this procedure.
The courts do not impose preventive detention as a punishment, but as a preventive measure. It is intended to protect the population from perpetrators who have served their actual sentence for a particularly serious crime but are still considered dangerous. The perpetrators can theoretically remain imprisoned indefinitely. The conditions must be significantly better than in prison, and there must be a greater range of therapies and support. In principle, preventive detention is not limited in time. A court reviews whether it persists at regular intervals.
The defendant gave extensive information about himself and the matter on Monday, said a spokeswoman for the Freiburg Regional Court. He mainly explained his contacts in the Darknet – an anonymous part of the Internet. Later, a police officer testified as a witness about investigations in Belgium and Düren (North Rhine-Westphalia), in which there were also references to the defendant. However, there was no evidence of real meetings with the accused there or even sexual abuse.
The interrogation of the two men was about whether and, if so, which pedophile networks the accused was involved in, the spokeswoman said. The connection to the complex in Belgium was not yet known at the time of the first judgment. She did not give details of the statements.
The crimes against the boy from Staufen became known in January 2018 and had caused horror nationwide. The mother and her boyfriend had raped the child for over two years and given it to other men from home and abroad for money for serious sexual violence. There were eight judgments in the case.
The man, who comes from the vicinity of Barcelona, admitted that he raped the boy several times and paid money for it. A total of four days of negotiations are scheduled for the new procedure.
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